Incredibly Racist Song ‘Asian Girlz’ Defended By Band Who Calls It A ‘Tribute’

Asian women have long dealt with stereotyping, mocking and ridiculous expectations from Western culture, but you would think that people in the entertainment industry would know better by now. (Very) generally speaking, people in music, film and the like are less inclined to act outright racist, as they know full well that the public will respond with justifiable anger. Los Angeles band Day Above Ground is seemingly unaware of this, as they recently premiered a music video for their song, “Asian Girlz,” a tune which has some of the most racist and race-based sexualizing we’ve ever heard.

Angry Asian Man, who brought the video into the blogosphere’s eyes, deems it “racist, yellow fever bullshit” and “possibly the worst song” he’s ever heard. After forcing myself to listen to the song, I have to admit: he is totally correct. Even without the insanely offensive lyrics, this would likely make my ears bleed. It possesses the musicality of the last squirt of sunscreen being shit out of a bottle.

Here, check it out.

If more than five seconds of that was too much, here’s a sample of the song’s lyrics:

And you age so well
I can barely tell
17 or 23?
Baby doesn’t matter to me

Well, at least we know that whomever wrote this song is not only a racist douchebag, he’s also creepily into having sex with someone who might be 17-years-old. Funny how horrible personality traits accompany each other!

As Angry Asian Man says, all the lyrics are just “same old racist fetishistic” BS. Unsurprisingly, many other people were upset and began flooding the song’s YouTube page with comments to the point where the band took it down and put it back up.

The model in the video, LevyTran, responded to the controversy on Twitter:

I sincerely apologize to all who feels that I set Asian women back 50 yrs. I know I lost respect from a lot of ppl. It wasn’t my intention

This song is us, Day Above Ground, making fun of ourselves (and many, many other guys) obsession with the always lovely, Asian Woman. It pushes this concept to an absurd level, but at the same time is endearing & submissive.. WE ARE NOT RACIST, HAHA! I mean, look at our band, it’s multicultural!! The guy in the bow-tie, our cutie bass player, was born in Indonesia, and he steals the show!! Please don’t take this tongue-in-cheek tribute to some of the most gorgeous women on the planet too seriously!! You’ll ruin the fun of it all!! Thanks for watching, sincerely!!

Haha, get it! They’re making fun of THEMSELVES by generalizing “Asian Woman,” by which I think they mean “Asian women” and not one singular person whose nationality they do not actually know. This is essentially the equivalent of “hey, we have a black friend, so don’t worry, we can say the n-word and fetishize black women because they’re ALL cool with it!”

Asian women have this reputation of compliance, of “me love you long time,” of being “exotic” objects for men’s amusement. It’s all bullshit, and to perpetuate these generalizations is also bullshit. On the bright side, given the fact that Day Above Ground’s fanbase primarily consists of their own girlfriends, spouses, drunk high school buddies and people who defend Creed on Reddit, I’m at least optimistic that their bullshit will not be carried forward by too many people.

An answer to the question no one asked: “What if Crazy Town was racist?”

Sean

I always wonder if shitty bands write this stuff JUST to get attention, like this is their one shot to make money/get famous. I mean seriously, if your only option to get cash is to write and sing this song, couldn’t you just search “how to make meth” on the internet?

adistantsecond

You know, some of the most insipid racists I’ve met were other Asian-Americans struggling with identity issues. Because one of your band members is Asian does not make the song any less full of racist caricatures neither does speaking for him and infantilizing him as a ‘cutie’ make you any less free of bigotry.

Kimberly

They’re like the new Rebecca Black, except racist, sexist, and possibly pedo.

I’m not sure why but all the recommended articles by The Gloss are about sex, and this article’s talking about sexualization of women. Talk about awkward.

adamfox

The thin line between satirical genius and aggressive, ignorant sexism is oh so thin. But oh sooooo significant.

wally

I know these guys. They are not racist. They are actually talented musicians, dedicated to their craft. Decent men. They ‘stepped in it’ here, however, and are making amends, soon to remove the video. However, we see the double standard showing it’s ugly head here… what if they were an all-Asian band? Would the reaction have been different? How is this video worse than some of the violent, woman-hating, vulgar-cursing rap that has been passing for entertainment for over a decade, and has made many millionaires?
Sure, it may be in bad taste, and offensive to women in general and Asian women in particular, but evil and “the most racist thing you’ll see this year”…? Hmm.

asian female

As an Asian-American myself, I don’t think we CARE whether the band is RACIST or not. They should think twice what kind of MESSAGE they’re sending to the public and how their MESSAGE may offend and hurt others. KNOW what’s APPROPRIATE in private versus public. They chose to select a specific group, Asian American females and derogate them.

Even if they were an all-Asian band, I would consider them perverts and morally damaged. Seriously, if you want attention, get it by your music, not by creating some controversy.

RMD

And rape is ????

Mena

An all-asian band would NEVER put out lyrics as misogynistic, racist, and stereotypical as these. I highly doubt these guys are “talented” as the song itself is horrendous on a musical level. What they did do is successfully roll into one song/video all the misguided stereotypes of asian women – it’s sad when people in America don’t see what’s wrong with these lyrics. Fuck them and fuck you too.

Samantha_Escobar

I don’t think I said it was the most racist thing you’ll see this year. Taylor Chapman and plenty of other folks are in that race, so I’ll pass on judging this years Racism Prom King.

That said, I don’t think there’s a double standard. I would still find this song incredibly offensive if the band were exclusively Asian men. And I don’t recall ever claiming it was worse than the violent, misogynistic music that’s on television; I hate that stuff, too, and have commented on it here before. Just because there are other awful things in the industry doesn’t mean it’s okay to continue producing more.

lisa

Derogatory lyrics aside, the song is awful so by you saying there’s talent there automatically discredits any point you’re trying to make. Its really pathetic that horrible musicians turn to controversy to gain attention.

Landry

if they were an all Asian band, that’d be even worse! Are you kidding? Because then they would not only know of the culture, but know the culture first hand, and if they wrote a bunch of stereotypes about their own females… no. This video is just bad.

skim

They are a bunch of dudes who wrote a song with offensive and racist statements about Asian women – what did they expect the reaction would be? This Korean-American woman is PISSED.